The Memoires of Maia Avari
by vingslag
Summary: A princess from a distant planet finds herself in trouble, but help is near and she'll soon be on a big adventure in time and space. OCxDoctor, JackxOCxIanto Different OCs


**The story of Maia Avari **

Chapter 1: Genesis.

Maia was scared. She was unbelievable scared. She was more scared than she ever had been ever before in her life. The attack had been fast and deadly. She didn't sense it at first, but then it was like the entire planet stopped. Just stopped, and it didn't felt like it was going to start its course around the sun and the moon again. Ever again.

It felt like every living creature on its surface stopped and vanished all at once. That they vanished without a trace… wiped from the face of the earth. The feeling Maia felt inside of her was horrible and she hurried towards her home. Maybe her family was still alive! Although she doubted it greatly. Her family and the rest of the population were alike. Everyone was treated as equals. And even though Maia's family was Royal they lived like all the other people. Sure, they did have more luxury than for example merchants, but it certainly wasn't too much luxury. The Royal family was more… a symbol… a tradition for the people. They didn't have much power. It was the Elders who were the real leaders, but the Elders used to consult the Queen and the King before they did drastic changes in laws and other political affairs, which Maia didn't care much about. Politics was nothing of interest for her. But she believed that what her parents said didn't mean so much for the most powerful of the Elders. But the truth was that they didn't care much about anything… if it didn't strengthen their own believes and thoughts of course.

She didn't like them very much. And the feelings were, as stated before, mutual. She always had the feeling that they actually were sneering and that they conspiring behind the other Elders and her parents backs. That they meant to hurt them. It was a very weird feeling, she had always thought, and since no one else had seemed to feel the same way she never said anything about it. Why would they want to hurt her mother and father? But this could not be their doing. This was too drastic, even for them… and they were very old (over 700 years, at least), so they couldn't really do any harm. Or could they?

'_Why… Am I still standing here?! I must hurry!' _She had stood still like a statue for quite a time now, and she clearly was in a hurry. This was important – very important, and still here she was… like an apathetic person whilst her world stopped moving and breathing, _'I should run!' _

And she begun to ran towards her home. Fast, she ran. Over roots and stones. Jumping over old stocks covered in moss. She had always wondered whose linked tree these stocks had been. But they had been dead for hundreds and hundreds of years. She ran faster than she had ever run before in her life. Suddenly, as she ran, the world was shaking. It was like the annual earthquake that used to hit the lands around summertime. But this was more than thousand times as powerful as those earthquakes. It was as if all the roots of the high and mighty trees that surrounded her, the very trees that were the jewels of her people were pulled up from their peaceful sleep in the ground all at once. It was like they were cut with axes and swords. The planets foundation was beginning to break apart, and the trees were screaming in pain.

The trees leafs fell to the ground, and many trees that were younger fell with its leafs. Those trees were children. Those children were broken now. They were dead. Gone. Never to return again. It was in these children's care the planet would have been left when the older ones were dead and buried. These children had been the future But now… But now it felt like there was no future. It felt like there wasn't anyone left but Maia. The older trees surrounding her bled. The older population of her people slowly bled to death as if this were a horrible, sadistic and morbidly sick dream. But this wasn't a dream. It was reality.

"For the loss of their children…" she breathed. But she had no time to stop now. She had to get home, maybe to see her parents and brothers for the last time in her living days, before death come to pick up her too. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Tears of pain.

She ran through the woods were the ground was covered in green leafs which, before her own eyes started to wither and turned brown. She closed her eyes in pain and more tears stained her cheeks. Now she did understand… Now she did have actual proof, and such horrible proofs it was. Everyone on her planet had a personal tree. And every person was linked to that tree. If the person was ill, so was the tree. And now all the trees in the forest had died all at once. Like all the people had been wiped out at the exact same time. Thousands of people were dead. But why? Why didn't she figure that out at the beginning? Why hadn't she felt that something was terrible wrong when she watched the new day begin? She had felt that everything had stopped moving. She had felt it! But yet, she hadn't understood what it meant until know.

She used to rise with the sun, which she also had done today. The sunrise had been beautiful, but it hadn't told her anything of the happenings this new day brought. It had been bright and peaceful. Not dark and threatening. There had been no signs of anything.

Her planet was a peaceful planet. As far as she knew they haven't ever been fighting in many wars… But then history wasn't her strong side. She loved nature more than dusty old books in the large libraries at the GOT (Government of Therin). She was forced to go there for school and she hated it. Not that she hated learning; it could be entertaining, occasionally. But most of the time she thought it was boring and totally unnecessary to sit inside in a stuffy room around the Elders and listen to their stories about the old and important traditions of the planet. That it was Maia and her brother's duty to continue following the traditions and so on and so forth. Frankly, it bore her to death.

They also told her anecdotes of how they had lived when they were young, which she already had heard about ten times a day since the day she was old enough to sit still for five minutes and listen. She knew them all by heart by now. If someone was to wake her up in the middle of the night and ask her what happened to Elder Silvanus on his 300th birthday she could easily list up exactly what he had did for the entire day. For every minute of that day. Why her mind choose to keep that information was a riddle, it wasn't even relevant for her education.

Maia wanted to be outside under the sun. She wanted to feel the wind in her face and feel the water around her feet when she played in the streams in the forests. She wanted to feel like she truly was alive and that her life wasn't an illusion. Maia was a botanist and a quite skilled one too. Some of the Elders, some of the nicer of them, had seen that Maia's free spirit wasn't comfortable with the dusty and old libraries, and had once taken her to the large greenhouses in the gardens of GOT. Maia felt like she had found her purpose in life back then when she first entered them. She had felt so alive and happy. She had been crying and had desperately tried to hold on to the doors when she was dragged back home for supper by the guards. She'd wanted to stay there in the greenhouse around the plants and learn more about them, and what they could do. She knew that some plants could cure illnesses, and that some were deadly to even touch. It was so interesting, and she felt calm trying to understand them correctly.

She was known for 'being one with nature', and since she was a member of the Royal Family everyone around her world knew this. Some people liked it and the older generation looked back in time and saw her as the old queen, Maia's grand grandmother Melia who had been the same as Maia, which had been revolutionizing in her time. Melia had loved nature so much that she had turned into a tree, but the location she chose to be her eternal resting place was now fallen in oblivion. Maia had been looking for it many times. But her ancestor had hid well in the deep, deep forests so she never had gotten the opportunity to meet her. But some people didn't like the idea of having the princess running around freely. And these people were the eldest Elders. They used to say that 'a princess should know better than get her hands dirty. It's a disgrace for the kingdom!' But Maia, personally, loved it. It wasn't her responsibility to inherit the crown, anyway, so she could do what she wanted as long it wasn't illegal. And gardening wasn't forbidden for everyone to practice. Not even to a princess.

Maia always feared that someone some day would lock her up in a cage of responsibilities and duties. That was her biggest fear. The cage. To not be able to run free around the city and through the woods, and learn more about how the planet was built. To be locked up… As some of the Eldest wanted her to be, she sadly believed. They saw Maia as a thing… Not as a person. Not as a living thing. They saw her like something that they could use in bargains with their neighbouring planets. Like a piece of meat on the market, waiting to be sold of. She was deadly afraid of that. But now her fears didn't mean anything now that everyone beside herself was perished

She fell onto the ground and begun to shake with tears. Her entire planet was ruined, and was she to go down with it? Did she want that? Did she want to live now when she was alone in this entire world? Would her people and family tell her to live on to keep the memory of them alive? She didn't know… And she would never get the answers, either. Why did everything need to be so complicated…

As she fell she had scraped up her knee. She was bleeding, and so was her World. She could hear the whole earth scream for help, but she couldn't do anything to help it, she just couldn't. She was hopeless. She was useless. She had always been hopeless and useless. She wasn't strong like the others… She was the youngest. The most hopeless and useless one. Sure, her parents loved her greatly, but she always felt unneeded. Her brothers were all so much better at anything than she was. Her brothers' behaved like proper kings to be should, but she… she was always the irresponsible younger sister.

Maia was the one who fled the GOT and the dark and dusty libraries to go hiking in the outdoors – alone. Alone in nature had always been more comfortable for her than being indoors. She often grew inpatient indoors, and longed to get out into the sunshine to be alive and joyful. But since she had been raised to respect the Elders wishes she often chose to be inside to not create any fights and brawls between the court and the GOT.

She was very close to her home now. Black smoke was oozing out from the highest tower where the windows had been crushed to thousands and thousands of pieces because of the heat from the inside. Her home was burning. It was destroyed, too… And frankly… she didn't mind. She was going to die anyway, so what did her home mean now? She would be happy if she met her family in her next life. That they all could live together again and never feel any sorrow.

She could see the gates now. They were opened, and odd enough felt welcoming as they always did. As she was running she thought she saw the leaves of her parent's trees falling down onto the dying earth, and she sprinted the last remaining meters up the big stairs.

'_Please, let them still be alive! Please!' _she pleaded inside her mind. But somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that they weren't breathing anymore, but she had always been a believer of hope. She knew that hope was there. Somewhere. It might be hidden, but it was always there.

Her parents and her brothers were dead. She saw them die. She saw them take their last breaths at the exact same time. She was too late. The last leaf had fallen onto the ground just as she had come up the stairs and entered the throne room, which was located in the gardens near the nature which her people always had treasured.

She screamed in agony. Everyone was gone. Everyone she ever cared about was gone. And she could feel that she was going the same way. It went slowly, and every leaf that fell from her still green tree, felt like if a knife stabbed her heart over and over again. She gasped in pain.

Maia didn't want to die. She had so much to live for. There were so many memories to carry to the end of time. She still had so many things to do. She wondered what her mother would have said to her if she was alive now to help and guide her. Her mother was a very wise woman, who always had been smiling gently towards everyone. Her father was much sterner. He had a booming voice, and he loved to be heard. But sometimes, when she knew that she had done something wrong, her father's booming voice was an alarm. Is was easy to tell were he was, and then she just stayed in the shadows or went to the forests until he had calmed himself down and in his rage had forget why he was mad in the first place.

Maia fell to her knees before her mother's dead body. Even in death the woman held a serene smile upon her face like if there was nothing to be afraid about. As if she said that everything was okay. That death wasn't so bad after all. That everything that was wrong in the world just was a very bad nightmare that soon would be over if she just welcomed it without fear.

And maybe her mother was right. Maia knew that the end of her days just waited for her behind the corner. She thought that she saw death grin towards her and just waiting for her to let go of her life so that he could take her. She soon would see her loved ones again. She was walking down the exact same road as they walked. They walked towards the exact same goal to be together forever in harmony and peace.

'_Together…'_

She turned her head towards her own tree which still were standing tall. She looked at her mothers' body one last time ("I'll see you in a bit mother. Wait for me, please? Don't leave me alone in a place I know nothing about, please…") and went towards her own tree and gently ran her fingers along its body and she felt the slightly rugged surface which she had grown to love over the years. Her tree was her friend, and she wanted to be near it when she died. She wanted for them to be together when it happened. She wanted to talk with her friend for one last time before it was their time to say their bye byes to each other. She gently caressed the remaining leaves which she could reach. Her tears soaked the soil around its roots. She hugged it, and sat down by its roots and leaned at its body. She gently smiled towards the highest reaching branches like she always did when she dropped by for a visit. But usually she could see either sun- or moonlight filter through the thick leafage… But now, all she could see was the strange red light. The sun and the moon were dead, too.

"I guess this is the end…" she thought she could hear a faint reply when a cold wind swept in over the gardens and went through the remaining leafs, "It's been good knowing you. I guess I will see you soon…?"

'_Always'_

Maia still smiled, even though her last moments in life were extremely painful, when her world went black.

**The TARDIS-crew POV**

"Doctor! We've got some sort of signal!" a woman shouted, her voice echoing as if she were in a very large room. The board before her suddenly had started beeping with an annoying sound. It was kind of catchy, though, even though both women felt nauseous hearing it. It was cutting through their bones and marrow.

"It seems to be extremely weak, though" another woman shouted as well. Apparently the person they were calling out to was quite far away. As she shouted the beeping was already beginning to fade and became a lot quieter than it had been a second ago.

'_Puh…' _the two women thought at once. That sound had been like a hammer beating their ear drums, and they sighed in pleasure when it disappeared completely. But then they both gasped. Signal disappearing did equal to not good.

A man came rushing from somewhere deeper inside the big thing they were traveling in and looked at some instruments which were placed before the women.

"Help… Someone's calling for help… we think. But the sound stopped a couple of seconds ago," the first woman said. She sounded quite certain that it was a call for help, what else could it be? It **had** to be a call for help; otherwise she thought the TARDIS wouldn't have picked up the signal if it wasn't of any importance.

The woman who had talked had goggles on the top up her head. She sounded concerned. Help was always bad, and even though the sound had been not very pleasurable it wasn't a very good sign that it stopped beeping. The woman's name was Liz, and she liked saving others and it was one of the reasons why she had made the choice of continue traveling with the Doctor so many years ago. It just was the whole… dead people-business that always seemed to go hand in hand with calls of help.

"Then why didn't you tell me so at first?!" the man shouted at her and the other woman whose name was Rose. He was worried. Now, it was unusual for the TARDIS to even pick up signal, normally the problems come to the team as they arrived to a new time and place. And if the TARDIS picked up a signal of this weakness, a signal so weak that it stopped, the Doctor didn't know what he was supposed to believe. Was the one who had called for help dead? Or had someone else come to their rescue? He had to check it out either way.

"What's happening? Why are you all so stressed up?" Another man joined the three of them and looked at the rest of the group with some interest. He'd never seen the Doctor being so stressed up before during his journeys with him. The two women onboard were just standing there side by side looking as good as ever. They were both blonde, but with different hair cuts. Liz's hair was short and quite spiky, whilst Rose's hair was long and straight.

If the two of them did stand still because of the excitement of getting a call for help, or shock from receiving it was a question. They both had excellent poker faces, but deep inside them their female intuition were telling them that something was terrible wrong.

"I've got a bad feeling 'bout this…" the woman named Rose whispered to her friend beside her.

"So do I…," Liz replied.

However, the two men on the ship didn't seem to feel anything weird. But Rose and Liz just nodded to each other and shared a little worried smile. Men and women were not alike in some aspects. Women seemed to have somewhat of a sixth sense that told them when things were bad. Men seemed to lack that special intuition.

Neither of them did say anything about their bad feelings since they didn't wanted to stress up the Doctor more. He was now smashing the TARDIS-board with a hammer, like he often did when it wasn't cooperating with him. The TARDIS was an old model, but since the Doctor's planet, Gallifrey, wasn't existing anymore he couldn't upgrade it… He had tried to upgrade it lots of times, but none of them had worked. He just couldn't. But this wonderful machine seemed to be able to take some hits without any harm, since he fairly often did smash the board when it wasn't cooperating with his wishes.

And suddenly the beeping noise came back, and the Doctor scanned the board for information of where the plea for help come from. No one of the other three members of the crew knew how he was able to read out anything on the computer screen. All they saw were numbers and images of planets and a lot more strange symbols and avulsive words.

Jack watched the two women but he couldn't hear what they were saying, so he turned his gaze to the Doctor instead and chuckled lightly at the sight of the hammer. It looked quite ridiculous having a grown up man, a very _handsome_ grown up man that is, smashing the instrument board of his own spaceship like a small, spoiled child that was angry that it didn't had the birthday present it had wished for. But Jack could see that the Doctor was put in a heavily stressed state right now. He was the Doctor after all, and he couldn't turn down a call for help. Now that he thought about it; Jack wouldn't deny a call for help either.

"So it's Therin", The Doctor said in hushed tone to himself as he had checked the information and he pulled and pushed around the instruments before him after he had hit it with his reliable hammer a couple of times, "Hold on tight, you three, it'll be a bumpy road there!"

"To where? Where are we going Doc-" Rose asked but her question was drenched in the sound of the dematerializing TARDIS and she fell on the floor and grunted. Liz, however, didn't fall. She had already taking a grip around something. Rose grumbled to herself. Liz had so much better reflexes than she had; probably because Liz was an alien.

"Hey, you could have been a bit more specific!" Jack said in a quite harsh tone as he held onto the nearest thing to him as the TARDIS went through time and space at a very fast speed. Jack had almost fallen to the floor as well, and he was a little bit worried about Rose too. Did she hurt herself while falling? But since she was standing up again, she didn't seem to be in any pain.

"What in "bumpy" don't you understand? Do I have to spell it out to you?!" the Doctor replied to the man, equally harsh as he turned a small steering wheel and pushed a button on the board before him. He was very focused at his work right now. Someone, or something, had been calling for help, and as the Doctor he felt it was his duty to follow any calls for help out in the universes. And this man, this 'Captain' Jack Harkness, had been constipated to interfere with his work. Jack had opened his mouth to retort something back to the Doctor, but was interrupted by Rose.

"Hey! You two, stop bickering like small kids. You should know better!" Rose stated. She now had found something to hold on to, and she did hold on with all of her might. The Doctor hadn't been joking when he said that the road would be a bumpy one.

"Hold down that one!" he shouted over the crashing noises to Rose.

"How many arms do you think I have?! I'm already holding down two others!"

"Use your feet then!"

The navy blue machine suddenly came to a halt on a soft ground. The four persons, the Doctor, Liz, Jack and Rose, stumbled out in a dark forest area. The ground was covered in something red. Something wet. Liz bent down and put her hand in it even though she knew how dangerous it could be sticking your hand into sticky liquids if you didn't know what it was. But Liz was an adventure seeker by nature. And there was nothing she could do anything about it.

"I think we made it," the Doctor said whilst casually looking around in the area. Lots and lots of trees. Obviously they had landed in a forest, and it didn't surprise him at all. Therin was a forest planet. As far as he remembered it just had one city – the capital Avari. Then there were just small hidden villages within the mighty ever green forests. Therin just had two seasons. Spring and autumn.

"Its blood...," she said looking at her three friends who stood assembled around her, "There's blood everywhere, Doctor!"

"Bingo. Great mind work you've got there Lizze. I can see your brain cells oozing with activity", the man called the Doctor said quite sarcastic, while he was trying to not step into a large pool of blood. But at the same time he tried to gather some of it in a small container of glass for some strange reason. Blood was not any mysterious liquid. Blood could be found anywhere in the universe. But now, the Doctor was a strange man. Probably the strangest man Liz had ever met.

The other woman, Rose, did suddenly let out a gasp and pointed to the trees and the others turned their gazes the way she was pointing at. The things they saw was horrible or at least three of the crew members thought that. The sight was macabre.

"Bleeding trees, haven't seen that for a while." the Doctor said, whist both woman silently watched the trees. It looked so sad. It looked so unbelievable. Jack also looked at the trees and he felt a flashback come back from his years at World War II… Death. Blood. Holes. This place was exactly like a war ground, just without the bodies.

'_Since when do trees bleed?'_

"All this blood comes from the trees…" Liz breathed out as she fell over a large pile of withered leaves, "Who put all those leaves here?!" she jumped up ready to size up an opponent but instead she found herself looking into the eyes of the most odd creature she had ever seen. It was a woman. A woman…looked like one of these nymphs which you could find in the Greek and Roman legends. The woman was sadly smiling at her. She was beautiful, but at the same looked unbelievable. It looked like a nature spirit Liz once had seen painted in a picture book for children. But traveling with the Doctor had made her being used to surprises. She had become quite used to encounter creatures that she thought just were tales to really be alive.

"What are you?" she said to the creature as she examined it. She was about to walk around it and analyze it but was stopped by the gasp of Rose behind her and Liz turned around and looked at Rose who looked both amazed and frighten. It was something Liz could understand. It was weird to have a spirit look at you, and to get emotions that weren't your own to run through your head. Liz felt fear, sorrow but also, strangely enough, gratefulness.

"Who are you…?" Jack said as he approached the creature as well, "I'm Captain Jack Harkness, by the way," he added in a quite flirty tone. She didn't answer. She just stood there in silence, as if she were waiting for something. The Doctor also joined them and he looked at the creature as well. He didn't seemed to be surprised, or anything. But the others guessed that the Doctor most certainly had met a creature like this before. Rose and Liz had met trees before, but this certainly wasn't a tree even though the woman was clad in only leafs and flowers.

"She… wants us to follow her…" Rose said as she took a step in the same direction as the spirit, "Do you think she'll harm us, Doctor?"

"Fantastic! We even get a guide! Great!" he didn't seem to hear Rose question, and even if the tension in the air was depressive he smiled a wicked smile, and he strode on forward, "She are probably the one who sent the signal. Let's follow her and see what she want before this planet goes bye-bye!"

They all hurried through a forest were everything seemed to be dead. They and their guide seemed to be the only living things here. They couldn't hear anything. No birds. No people. No nothing. They could only hear their own steps and the crepitation of the leafs that they stepped on while running through the forest. The light that illuminated the area was red as the blood. It was… creepy. It was like the skies were painted in the blood that was splattered all over the ground. Here and there lied small fallen trees, and there were brown, withered leafs all over the forest floor. Leafs that turned to ashes as they ran by.

Jack looked up from the ground after a while following this odd spirit, or what it really was. As he looked up he thought that he saw a big building. But he didn't know if it just was his imagination. In this light, and in such macabre place who wouldn't be hallucinating? He wondered were this spirit was taking them. Who had sent it to their help?

"The trees, they are crying… right?" Rose said to the creature before her and shivered even though she was sweating. It looked bizarre. She didn't even know that trees could bleed. Or bleed _blood_ that is. But she got no reply from the creature that just speed up even more. The four of them were now forced to run very fast to hold up with their guide's pace. Rose wondered were they were going. Was this creature taking them to the one, or the ones, who had sent out the call for help?

"I think we're near this journeys end," Jack said more to himself than to the others after a while. The spirit had slowed down as they were hastily going (if you could tell it's movement as going… it more looking like it was gliding upwards) on what they supposed were a path. They could now see a couple of big stairs before them. The stairs lead up to two big gates, which were open. And though the gates they could see a large castle-like building which looked like it was made up of glass. Around the castle-like buildings laid small, small pieces of what he supposed was the material the castle was made of. But who'd ever heard of a castle made of glass apart from children's bedtime stories of fair princesses locked away in towers, just waiting for their knight in shining armour to show up and save them? Jack hadn't… That was a fact. But this castle also was fact. What was fact, and what was fiction is this bizarre world?

He and the others ran after the gliding green figure up the stairs, and when they reached its top a square like area lied deadly silent before them. In the middle of the area were six trees planted. All of those six trees were dead. The dead trees bodies was lots of dried dark-red blood. If they looked closely enough they would have seen the large scars that ran over the whole bodies. The scars looked like they were done by claws. Scattered on the ground near the seven trees was six bodies lying. It looked like they had been assassinated, since their wounds seemed to match each other. Large claw marks. Five of the bodies were male ones and one of them was a female. The bodies were clad in white togas, and the woman's head was crowned with a thick band of gold. Had they been too late? Was this the ones who had called for help?

Liz and Rose ran forward to see if these persons were still alive. But… These persons were dead. They all were. There were no signs of any heart activity, and Rose could feel tears spring up in the corner of her eyes, but she quickly dried them not wanting the others to see. Liz watched the six bodies and felt a sad twinge in her heart. These persons were family. They all had similar features. They all had brown hair, but the female was the only one who had curly hair.

"Look!" they suddenly heard Jack say in awe and they turned their gazes towards him. He pointed to the trees. They seemed to have missed one tree when they were looking at the trees the first time. The seventh tree was the smallest one of the trees and it still had some green, living leaves on small and dainty branches. And then he turned his gaze downwards the trees body and found himself looking at a wonderful sight. Leaning towards the body of the tree sat a girl. A beautiful girl. She resembled the dead female very much and Jack figured that she was the daughter to that woman. She had dark-brown curly hair and her head was crowned with a thin band of silver. It looked like she's was sleeping, but Jack could tell that the girl wasn't sleeping. She was unconscious.

'_Don't tell me she's a princess…' _Suddenly all those stories about damsels in distress seemed to become reality. Jack was now quite confused. Castle of glass was a fact, and now a supposed princess was fact too. Were the other children's bedtime stories true as well? But now wasn't the best time to think about that. Not when they were on a planet that the Doctor said could blow up in any second, and especially not now when they had found a still living person.

"Oh…" he heard Rose say and he looked at the girl once again. The spirit was standing by the unconscious girl now. It looked down at her unconscious figure and Jack could swear he saw something drop from the corners of the spirits eyes. But what could a tree spirit, a spirit made up by wood, be crying? Soil? The creatures gracefully waved with, what must have been a hand, to the TARDIS-crew, as if to urge them to come closer.

"Must be the one they want us to save. Very strange," the Doctor said walking towards the silent spirit with Liz hot on his tail. Jack looked at Rose who nodded, and they quickly followed after the other two. As they was near enough to see the face of the unconscious girl, the figure stepped forward and held up an open palm, like if it was saying that it came in peace. They stopped waiting for something to happen. Impatiently waiting for explanations from their guide. The Doctor tapped his foot in the ground and did a foul face. He obviously had sensed something that no one of the others had felt. Something bad. Liz was just about to ask him what when she heard something. There was a voice speaking in her head which wasn't hers.

'_**Please listen to me. And please listen carefully. Neither you, nor I have much time left… You must leave soon if you do not wish to go the same way as my race and the others who inhabited this planet' **_a voice said inside their heads. The voice sounded both calm and stressed at the same time. All, but the Doctor jumped at this. He was quite used with creatures who spoke telepathically, but he still looked somewhat tense.

"Did you hear-"Liz's words were stopped by the spirit.

'_**Do not speak, please, just listen. I want you to take the Princess with you. She can't die yet. It isn't her destiny. Her dreams shouldn't die here. She's about to die, so please… I beg of you! I beg of you from the bottom of my hearts. Bring her with you, Doctor. You did it once before-' **_

"… How did you know that…?" the Doctor asked very slowly like he was deep in thought, which he was. He knew that this planet was about to die and he wanted himself and his crew out of here in the nearest future. He couldn't let anyone else die for his sake. And he didn't want Liz to die. She had lost so many years of her life already, and he wasn't about to see her die. He wasn't that strong, even though he tried to be. He knew that he one day would perish like everyone else.

'_**I see things. I hear things. I know things… But that is not the point. Please Doctor take her with you!' **_

Jack, who had stepped closer to the girl whilst the spirit was talking, bent down and scooped her up in his arms searching her for any injuries. He was absolutely sure the Doctor wouldn't mind having another passenger on the ship, especially since the spirit begged to them to bring her with them. Jack definitely didn't have something against bringing this girl with him. Not at all… Quite the opposite, really.

'So _she really is a princess…'_ he thought, _'I've never met a princess before…' _

Apart from a scratch-wound on her right knee, something his nanogenes would fix in a second, she seemed to be alright. No other injuries, blood or anything. It just seemed like she had been crying for a long time. But the spirit, or whatever she was, did say that the Princess was dying. It was impossible. Sure, the girl was pale, but she clearly wasn't sickly pale. Just pale like someone who had stayed inside the entire summer instead of going out in the sun. She still felt quite warm, and she was definitely breathing, even though her breaths felt a little weak and shaky. But still, he couldn't see any signs of that she was dying.

A leaf from the first green tree they had seen on this planet fell onto the shaking ground and the girl twitched and moaned with pain in Jack's arms and he looked down at her once again and now with concern. Her face was pulled into a painful grimace that didn't suit her at all. She had been smiling a second ago, so why was she in pain now?

"…No… no…no!" the girl muttered while some tears rolled down her cheeks.

Rose stared at the whole scene. What did those creatures mean by 'you did it once before'? The Doctor didn't seem to remember this girl, but at the same time she didn't think that this spirit would spend her last moments in life telling a lie to the only person that could save the Princess. She looked over at Liz who looked as clueless as herself. But then Rose connected two and two together, and she looked up at the living tree again and saw another leaf slowly fall to the ground and she heard the girl gasp in pain and mutter something inaudible for the second time.

'_It's the tree! It's that leaf that hurt her!'_ Rose thought, and her thought was correct for the spirit turned to her with a sad smile on her lips. It was as if the spirit had sensed that she had a picture of how it all was linked to each other. And what the spirit said was horrible.

'_**When the last leaf fall from that tree, the Princess will be dead…' **_it said.

"We better hurry then," the Doctor turned from the spirits and to his crew-members, "Jack, you take responsibility over the girl. Liz, Rose you hurry to the TARDIS, and when I say hurry I mean hurry. So go!"

Jack and Rose begun running down the stairs with lots of speed. They seemed to have understood that they actually were in mutual danger. That they could die at any second and disappear alongside the former inhabitants of the planet. And neither of them had planned that.

"What about you?" Liz said worriedly and stood tall, frozen to the spot. If the Doctor were staying here - so was she.

"Don't worry about me, Liz. I just have to do one thing and then I'll come after you."

She walked closer to him and looked at him with intense eyes. The Doctor felt like the blue eyes scanned him. Like if they looked right though him, which was kind of uncomfortable, but he had gotten somewhat used to that. Liz used her scanning at least ten times a day. Sometimes he wondered if her eyes were some sort of an x-ray… but he didn't want to ask her. Liz didn't know so much about herself, either, and every time when she had a question about herself that she couldn't answer to she used to go into a depressed mode. It was not a very funny to see. The Doctor wanted her to happy, and hence that he didn't ask her. She usually told him every time when she discovered something new about herself anyway.

"Promise?"

"Yes. Now go!"

She nodded her head and ran after Rose and Jack who know had run for quite long during Liz's and the Doctor's moment. But Liz saw them running fast on the pathway. She saw Jack holding the unconscious body of the assumed princess in his arms, her face still in that painful grimace upon her face and her hair was sticking to her cheeks. It was like the girl had a fever. Jack looked rather tense, Liz thought, but right now all she could concentrate on was to run. She ran faster than she ever had run before in her life.. But oh well, she could ask him later when they all was back in the safety of the TARDIS and had gone somewhere else then here. Somewhere safe.

_______________________________________________________________________

"She'll need some of her tree to live, right?" the Doctor asked the spirit before him.

'_**Yes. Hurry!' **_

The Doctor nodded and took up his sonic screwdriver from the inside of his simple leather jacket and pointed at the small tree which looked like a birch-tree. The still living branches melted together and formed a miniature tree in the size of a yucca. Now it could be transported anywhere the Princess wished, and she could live on until it really was time for her to go over the other side of the path of life and join the rest of everyone there.

The spirit, who had floated around him with a gentle and grateful face while he was preparing to shrink the tree, started to fade away ever so softly. When the entire figure had disappeared he bent his head in respect and begun to walk away from the dead trees. But as he begun to walk away he could swear he heard the faint voice of the spirit in the harsh winds saying _**'Thank you'**_.

As he was running through the dead forest he clearly heard a loud crash which sounded like it was coming from the earth itself. The core of this earth now was completely broken and this world was breaking apart at an enormous speed. The Doctor figured that this spirit he and his crew had seen and talked with was the very spirit of the planet itself, though that was something almost new to him. It had been a very long time ago since he last had seen one. Strange creatures these spirits were.

This spirit had done what she was supposed to do. Protect the planets inhabitant's destinies. As he ran with the fairly heavy plant, it was someone's life after all, in his arms large cracks in the ground were opening up around him. And the four persons who was the last standing persons on its surface could all hear some sort of scream which seemed to come from the ground it self. It was the spirit who died.

He could see Liz, Rose and Jack with the girl by the TARDIS. They were waiting for him to arrive. Some parts of him were happy for that, but other parts were furious.

"What are you waiting for!? Get into the TARDIS – NOW! This planet will soon explode and we're going down with it if you not board the TARDIS now! LIZZE, ROSE, you hear me? Get inside the TARDIS!" he shouted at them and they quickly did as he ordered. The Doctor could be very scary when he was angry.

The Doctor himself boarded the TARDIS safe and sound with the tree still in his arms and he handed it over to Rose who was the nearest person to him.

"Thank you for caring about me too," Jack muttered sarcastically. He couldn't understand why the Doctor didn't seem to care about him at all. He looked down at the girl and he was relived to see that she now was taking deeper breaths and she wasn't so pale any more. Her skin now was a healthier peach coloured-skin tone. Her tree, which was much smaller now, also seemed to feel better. As Jack watched the small tree he could swear that he saw at least four new branches with light green leaves grow out from the body. And he could almost swear that he heard a clear little laugh coming from it too. The girl turned in his arms, but not in pain this time, she just turned to get into a more comfortable position.

"Rose, take this and be careful," the Doctor spoke as he passed the plant over to her, "This plant is her life, and even though it seems like they are feeling better already it could change in a heartbeat, okay?" he nodded towards the girl who now were smiling softly in her sleep, "If you drop it and it break she'll die. Do not under any circumstances drop the plant."

Rose nodded. She could understand that much.

"It needs a pot, right?" she said looking at him, and he nodded and opened his mouth to say something, but Rose interrupted him, "I know where they are so the TARDIS will take me there, right?"

"Yep."

Rose gently looked at the plant and hurried away from the others. She rounded a corner, and found herself standing opposite a workbench which held some pots in different sizes, and some soil. Rose found a pot that seemed to be perfect for the small tree, and she gently planted the tree. Luckily she knew how to plant trees. Her mother, Jackie, practically had dragged her to lots of parks and gardens when she was younger and had bought lots of seeds for them to plant at home. Maybe Rose should do that to her kids; if she got any some day, too. She certainly was glad that she knew how to properly plant small trees at this very moment. Her finger nails did get dirty with the soil, but she couldn't care less. She was saving the girl's life doing this and it made her feel important and helpful. She grabbed the pot and went back to the control room.

"Fantastic! Good job, Rose!"

"Thanks."

Liz stood by the doors to the TARDIS, watching the planet take it last breaths, not caring too much that she and the other could be blown up in any minute. Rose, however, was quite scared (even though she tried to hide it) and she managed to do that quite well. But the Doctor could see the faint look of fright in the human's gaze where she stood by him holding the beautiful little green tree.

Liz snapped out from her thoughts, only to feel the angry gaze of the Doctor burn into her neck. She quickly closed the door to the TARDIS and turned around just as the world outside their ship finally gave up and broke totally. It now knew that its final purpose was done, and it could die at peace. The whooshing sound the TARDIS always did when it was transporting somewhere was heard and she saw Jack still standing with the girl in his arms wit the others, even though the road was as bumpy as ever.

"What is she?" he asked the Doctor after a short while. She looked human, but since they were in the outskirts of the universe there was no way she could be a human being at all. And being linked to a tree didn't seem very human, either.

"She's … technically a dryad, to put it simple," the Doctor replied and the three others frowned. Wasn't dryad's tree spirits? Tree = wood? This girl didn't seem to be very… woody…

"So… she is a tree?" Rose cleared her throat while asking and raised a brow. This day just turned out to be weirder and weirder as it went on.

"No, she's not a tree. She's a Therinian. She has a linked tree. Everyone person on her planet had one. All those dead trees in that forest we saw were dead because their linked persons were dead. I don't know why she was spared, but this spirit was… when in lack of better terms – her people's God. I do believe that she was the planet itself, in a sense."

"Wow…" Liz said amazed, "So if I were to… break a twig of that tree," she pointed to the miniature tree in Rose's arms and reached forward as if she really was to break of that twig when the Doctor stepped forward and moved her hands away from the tree.

"Lizze, that girl's life depends on this tree and you try to make her conduction worse? And here I go around thinking that you are bright…" he said to her.

Liz looked surprised and was speechless (which was unusual…) for while before she spoke up again now with her head hanging.

"So… it really is so. If the tree's getting hurt she does and vice versa?" she asked. Liz wanted to be absolutely sure.

"Yep," came the short reply, "Jack, you should place her somewhere were she can rest… She needs it."

Jack nodded and turned away from the rest of them with the now sleeping girl. He turned a corner and looked down at her again and smiled when he noticed the now normal breathing pace, and serene looking face. He chuckled once again when the girl snuggled into his chest.

"You've got an excellent bottom." He said to the still sleeping girl while carrying her around the TARDIS searching for somewhere to place her so that she could rest. He found a couch somewhere in the big inside of the TARDIS and gently placed her on it. He found a blanket and draped it over her so that she wouldn't be cold when she did wake up.

'_Bigger on the inside… I wonder why the Time Lords were so obsessed with that.' _

**Maia's POV**

Maia woke up with a terrible headache. It felt like someone had been smashing her head into a brick wall over and over and over again which equals to … awfully bad. Suddenly she realized that she wasn't home anymore. Or home… she wasn't lying on the ground outside her home anymore, which either meant that she was dead… or brought somewhere else.

If she was dead; was this the place you came too to be judged and sent to the next life. Where was here? No… If this where that place you came to when you died, shouldn't there be lots and lots of her people in lines waiting to be sent to their respective places. But as far as she could see, she was the only one here. And if she was brought somewhere else; where was here?

She was lying on a very comfortable sofa and she had a blanket gently placed over her. The blanket was light grey. She was warm and actually felt quite safe. She slowly sat up and gently held onto her head, massaging her temples. She hated to get headaches, and she had migraine attacks fairly often. It annoyed her greatly. But since she regularly had headaches she had some tricks it cure that up her sleeve. Maia also hated to take medicines, so she had experimented on herself to see which non-medical treatment was the best for her. Massage had been one of them.

"Ow… my head… ow… ow… ow…."

"Welcome back to life," a voice, a male voice, said somewhere behind her and she slowly turned her head towards the sound of the voice. It had come so suddenly out of nowhere. She was scared. Maybe it was death himself. Maybe he had come to fetch her from the first entrance hall. Although… as she turned her head and saw the man who had talked… she felt relief. He didn't look anything like death, or he didn't look anything like she always had portrait death. Her picture of death was a skeleton clad in a large black cape holding a scythe. This man didn't match anything in that picture.

"…Thank you…?" she said after a small pause while trying to get her thoughts in order so that they could make sense.

"That should be the right word, yes."

"Sorry…?"

"Yeah. That one too."

"Who are you?"

Maia watched the man. She analyzed him. He looked human, but somehow she could tell that he wasn't human at all. He had this strange aura around him. It felt like he had lived through countless centuries. He was tall (he was taller than her there is), but lots of people were taller than her. She often had to look up at people when she talked to her which could be very tiring for her neck. She always thought that she was ought to have a wear out neck before she even turned 300. The man, however, wore a leather jacket and some casual pants, which suited him nicely. He looked nice.

'_Who is this man?' _

But suddenly she realized something and stood up from the sofa on wobbly knees. The blanket which had been swept around her fell to the floor, but she didn't care about it at all. Maia was more concerned about herself at the moment. She still didn't know anything about this man. Not even his name, since he totally ignored her question.

"Are you the angel of death? If you are, make it quick, please!" she closed her eyes and waited for something to come. The awful sound of a swishing blade… a hit… well, she didn't knew what an angel of death usually used when it killed people. But what she heard was the thing she was least expecting. Laughter.

"Me? An angel of death? Ha-ha! I've been called a lot of things in my life, but I've never been mistaken for being an angel! Aren't you hilarious?"

Maia opened her eyes again and watched the man with a surprised look. He wasn't an angel of death… but did he intend to kill her? The man was still chuckling a bit and she quickly turned away from that thought. This man apparently had saved her and she couldn't se any reasonable reason why anyone would save someone else from already certain death. But still she was on her guard. Who knew what he could do… And he had called her hilarious, too.

"Who do you think you are calling me hilarious?! And did you watch me sleeping, you perv-"

"I actually guess that it shall be you who tell me your name first _princess_?" he said cutting her of, "I thought that was the first rule of the Royal family. Being polite. " He said when he had stopped his annoying chuckling. Seriously. It was getting on her nerves.

"How… did you know that?" She asked slowly backing away from the man and bumped into something, or someone, so that she fell forward. She closed her eyes, again, bracing herself for the impact when her face crashed against the floor… which never came. She felt hands on her shoulders that stabilized her so that she wouldn't fall again.

"Falling for me already, are you?" the voice of the one behind her said. It too was male. She squirmed free from the hands and took one big, wobbly step forward and turned around swaying, trying to maintain her balance. She gaped. The man before her was handsome. Very handsome.

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness," the man said, smiling charmingly, as he held up a piece of paper to her… on which she saw nothing. She looked at it with some interest. Was it supposed to be something written on it? Weird… But then suddenly words seemed to appear on the white surface.

"Okay…, Captain? Why is the only thing I can see on your… piece of paper is that you are single, and-"

"Name, please." the first man said boldly breaking her from her intense stare at the mysterious paper.

"Nuh-uh, you first, you supposed-not-angel-of-death-man, I'm not telling my name to a couple of strangers. I'm not stupid!" she retorted as a woman walked in the same way as the Captain, and for what she could tell also the first man she talked too had walked in through, since it was the only door there. At her words the man who called himself Captain snort with laughter.

"Not angel of death man? Who's that?" A woman said coming into the room with, at Maia's surprise, her tree. It was a lot smaller, but Maia could have recognized that tree everywhere. It was a normal gift. Her people could always tell exactly where their tree was. Maia's tree was talking to her in her mind, telling her that everything was alright now. They were together again. And they wouldn't leave each others side for a long time.

'_Just how many people are they?!' _Maia thought as she stared at the woman that held her tree. The woman had blonde hair and she looked fairly young…, and she looked human too. Maia suddenly realized that she couldn't feel the weight of her crown on her head anymore, but that was totally okay for her. She'd never liked that piece of metal anyway. Too uncomfortable.

The woman who had just arrived at the scene with Maia's tree whispered something in the first mans ear and he nodded, and she turned to Maia with a huge smile. The woman was really beautiful, and Maia could feel her cheeks going a little hotter. She was blushing.

"Hi, I'm Rose. Rose Tyler," the woman said and stretched her hand towards Maia who just stared at it. At the sight of her tree, and this woman had made her to kind of blank for the moment. And it felt like she had forgotten why you shook hands. It felt awful. She normally had lots of thought running through her head, and just fell completely blank felt weird. But, having her whole world destroyed and being saved by complete strangers that had saved her tree as well could have something to do with that.

"You have my tree… You really did save me, and my tree… You are like my guardian angels or something" ("I rather be the knight in the shining armour," the Captain muttered making Maia's already blushing face to turn ten shades more red). Maia laughed happily and tried to make the blush go down. For a moment she seemed to forget that there were other people in the room since she was mumbling words, like she was praying. It wasn't until the Doctor faked coughed she seemed to remember it and heavily blushed, "Sorry… I'm Maia Avari... thank you for saving me Captain… Ms. Tyler and… Supposed-not-angel-of-death-man? Sorry. What's your name? You didn't tell me. Now I have told you my name, so please return the favour."

"I'm the Doctor," the first man said and stopped Maia in her ranting.

"Doctor who of what?"

"Just the Doctor"

"… You get that question a lot don't you?"

"Pretty much."

'_The Doctor… why do I feel like I've heard that before…?'_

"Wait… Do you like celery?"

"HI! My name is Lizzieatrimin, Liz for short! Are you human? You don't look human, though… Rose is a human, so I was just wondering… But, oh, wait; we were basically in the middle of nowhere aren't we? That means you're an alien! Maybe we're cousins! Hm, peculiar thing you are… what are you? How are you?" Maia was surprised. The woman had plopped up from nowhere. It was like she had been standing under an invisibility cloak, and then suddenly had reappeared from beneath it once again. The woman who was standing before her was bursting with happiness, but Maia couldn't see anything joyful in this situation… Actually she was more shocked than anything. Someone had heard her pray and sent help for her. For that she was very grateful.

Maia was dizzy. This woman just talked too fast, and her head still felt like a gong-gong. She felt nauseous and almost fell to the floor again but was caught once again by the Captain.

"You really are falling for me, aren't you?" he said amused, but since Maia was more focused on trying to answer the woman without throwing up on her while speaking. This time she obviously needed more than some temple massage, that was for sure. A couple of hours sleep would be nice. Extremely nice. To get the chance to sleep and try to understand all what had been happening.

"…Well, I can feel that my planet isn't exactly _existing_ anymore. My whole family, my friends and my people are dead and you ask me how I feel? How do you _**think**_ I feel being left alone…? How do you think I feel knowing that I'm the last living person of them?" she asked the woman a bit angry.

She didn't believe this. This ship was mad. First there was the man, who was so… she didn't even know how to put it… He laughed at her fear and had the nerve to call her hilarious. Then there's the other man who totally was flirting with her, and then there is a human (which was a total mystery for Maia. How could there be a human on a spaceship? She had never heard of that, and she knew quite a lot about humans. Her Tudors had been obsessed with them) and now there's a hyper woman-thing who Maia absolutely believed wasn't a relative.

The Doctor, if he even were a doctor, chuckled a bitand walked away. Maybe he could feel the feelings in the air grow a bit tenser. The man named Jack was still holding her so that she wouldn't fall again, something she was quite happy about that. The human, Rose, smiled extenuatly towards her, as if to apology for her friend's behaviour, but Rose knew that Maia probably would get used to it. The first time Rose met Liz the woman had asked her billions of questions about humans and how they worked. And she had asked really odd things like what the proper use of a rubber duck were actually used for, and why people thought it was fun to read about things that scared them.

The hyper woman, apparently called Liz instead of that ridiculous long name, smile slowly faltered into a deep frown.

"… Bad?"

"You should think before you act!" Maia said, taking a big breathe, "Of course I feel bad."

"What's your name?" The woman's new question punched the air out from Maia's lungs like if it had been a punch from a fist. It had come so suddenly. This woman was a bundle of energy, she could tell. And unfortunately Maia's headache just become heavier and heavier. She wanted it to go away so that she could concentrate a little more on the things that was more important for her currently position.

"Hold on-," she stopped. Maybe she should just drop it? This wasn't like her. And being angry right now was like welcoming the painful headaches… which only made her sicker. She really hated to be sick, and she wasn't very fond of being vulnerable in front of people that she didn't know either. She didn't like to feel vulnerable. She wanted to feel free from anything that tried to bind her. That was her motto. Be free like the birds soaring high up above.

"I'm Maia. And you could, eh, let go of me now Captain. Thank you for your help though. I appreciate it." she said in a quite warm and friendly tune. The truth was that she didn't exactly want the man to let her go. She felt secure standing like this.

"I don't think that's a good idea-"

"No really. I'm fine! I promise."

"As the Lady commands," suddenly the grip around her shoulders was loosened and she stepped forward and almost directly lost her balance and fell into a heap on the floor. She winced when her scratch wound come in contact with the floor.

"Ow!" she winced, "Stupid floor…" she then muttered angrily hitting it twice with her fists.

"Told you!" the Captain said in triumph and helped her up, "And as much as I like a pretty girl like yourself (Maia blushed – again) calling me Captain, my name is Jack. Jack Harkness."

Rose watched the conversation with some interest. Jack was such a tease, but she actually was a little jealous at Maia at the moment. Rose remembered the first time she had met Jack, and smiled at the memory. He had been saving her from falling down from that old balloon… in the middle of a German air raid during World War II. She put down Maia's tree on the floor beside the sofa, and folded the blanket on the floor and hanged it over the sofa before she walked out the room. She wondered where they where now. Maybe they were in her time's London so she could visit her mom. She hadn't been home for a while.

Rose knew that the Doctor didn't like her mother very much, but she couldn't care less, really. She loved her mother, and nothing could ever change that. She was sad that Mickey wasn't around in this dimension anymore, but she hoped that he, Jake and her … father did save the world there from the Cybermen. She wished that she would see them again one day.

Jack was amused. Even though he had been talking with this girl for only five minutes he could already tell that he would enjoy teasing her. She was quite cute when she blushed. In the beginning the two other women had been blushing at his teasing too, but sadly enough the two of them had grown to ignore his flirting.

Maia stood, tomato red, once again in the arms of the tall, good-looking Captain. She'd always been weak for men in uniforms, and this Captain wasn't even wearing a uniform…

'_I don't think I know myself anymore…' _

"Your clothes look weird!" Liz's voice took Maia out from her thoughts like a lash with a whip, and she looked down at her clothes.

"What's wrong with them?!" All she could see was what everyone else at home was wearing at this season; a toga. There wasn't anything weird in wearing togas in spring. They were 1# comfortable. 2# they were cool. 3# they were easy to variety. She could list up benefitting things about togas all day long.

"But it's all… old and stuff…"

"I beg you pardon! What are you talking about? Everyone's we-", she remembered. She wasn't home anymore. In fact she wasn't sure where she was at all since nobody had told her yet, "Oh…"

Pause…

"To the wardrobe!" Liz said striking a weird pose before grabbing Maia's hand with some force, or enough force to pull her out from Jack's grasp that was. For being such a short woman, just being two-three centimetre's longer than Maia, Liz was strong. Liz rushed out from the room with the sofa with Maia in tow behind her. Maia was becoming dizzy again.

Jack was left alone in the room. He looked down at his hands. No Maia. He looked around the room. No Maia, and no Liz either. Liz had kidnapped Maia, in a sense, to the wardrobe. The wardrobe. That large room filled with clothing from every century that had past, it seemed. You could find anything in there.

"Dammit," he muttered and hurried after them.

Liz was running in a very fast speed, and Maia wondered if she actually were going to throw up. She didn't want too. This… well she supposed it was a space ship since they clearly wasn't dead, was so… clean that she didn't wanted to make a mess. But just as she opened her mouth to ask Liz to slow down they stopped promptly.

"And we're here!" Liz said proudly, as if she was presenting her children to Maia for the first time and proudly pointed at a plain looking door and opened it slowly. Maia was shocked. The room behind the door was enormous! This ship was extremely big, and a little memory of a much younger her hand in hand with an older man in a yellow suit some to her mind, but she ignored that for now.

She looked at Liz who smiled broadly and let go of her hand. Maia stepped inside the room. She walked around in awe. There were clothes hanging on hangers everywhere. And there were definitely no togas. Maia was disappointed. She really loved togas. A toga was the ideal clothing piece to her.

Something dark-green caught her eyes and she briskly walked towards it, at Liz's amusement… she'd been almost the same when she first had entered this room. When Maia touched the material of the dark-green-shirt she felt bliss, how weird it might sound. The material was so soft and smooth. And she pulled it of its hanger. The garment was beautiful. Its colour was like the colour of oak leafs, and around the hems there were silver threads embroidered in a pretty pattern. She fell in love with that shirt. Maia wasn't a very material person, but right now she only owned her own life, so she thought that she actually had the right to be a little material for once.

She spun around and smiled broadly at Liz who stood quite crestfallen. Maia was a quite … peculiar girl. She'd gone from depressed to blushing to happy in only a couple of minutes.

'_She must be in some kind of shock… having mood swings like that,' _Liz thought as Maia pranced around the room searching for a pair of jeans that would fit her. Liz wondered how Maia could know what a pair of jeans were, since her home planet wasn't anywhere near the Milky Way. But Liz knew nothing about that planet, after all. They could have connections on Earth of some sort.

"AHA!" Maia had found a pair of skinny black jeans that seemed to be in her size. She looked over at Liz again, who now seemed to be deep in thought. And that was something that Maia would see many times during her friendship with Liz. Liz was a very thoughtful, and clever, woman under the bubbly persona.

"Um… Liz? Hello? Are you in there?" she said walking towards the other woman and waving her hands in front of her face. Liz was lost in thought. Very lost in thoughts.

'_I wonder what she's thinking about…'_

Maia went behind some screens in a corner and quickly changed into her new clothes. She gently folded her toga, and put it on a shelf behind the screens so that she easily could find it again sometime later on. She wondered if that was alright that she had taken the clothes she was wearing. It could be Rose's or Liz's clothes, and she hadn't asked for permission. She should ask them later, and ask them if it was alright that she used their clothes for now. But… probably it was okay for her to use them. Why did they leave their clothes in here if they didn't thought it was okay for someone else to use them… if it was theirs?

When she stepped out from behind the screens Liz was happily talking to the Captain about something obviously interesting since they were both gesticulating as they were speaking. Or that was before Jack set his gaze upon Maia.

"Oh my, don't you look ravishing!" he said smiling warmly at her briskly walking towards her. He took her hand and gently placed a kiss upon her knuckles, like a real gentleman would do.

"Thank you," she said while trying not to blush and smiled back at him equally warm. At first she had found this man to be… well, she didn't have any words for the feeling she first felt when she woke up otherwise than pain and confusion. And then she had felt secure with him. He did radiate a very nice and quite suave aura. She liked it.

Liz jumped into their conversation, also with a warm smile upon her face.

"Wow! Didn't know that were clothes like that in here! You look fantastic! You know it's all about adapt, adopt and improve – you'll be fitting right into the team I can tell! And you know you and I, we can be like sisters! We can braid each others hair and everything!"

"Sorry what? ARGH!" the other woman had suddenly jumped on her hugging her and pushed away Jack in the process. Maia was surprised. She wasn't very used to hugs. She liked hugs, though. It just was unusual for her to receive any hugs. It wasn't that it was forbidden… It just was… um… she couldn't remember the word. It was… improper.

"We can be like sisters you and I!" She said while releasing Maia from the bone crashing hug and instead grabbed her hands and started to jump around in a spinning dance… if you could can that a dance.

"I'll be your sister if you just stop going around it such high speed! I'm going to-"her hands slipped from Liz and she stumbled backwards and that made her fall back into the corridor where she and Liz had been before they entered the wardrobe.

"Aw! Didn't mean to do that – sorry!" Liz's apologizing voice said from inside the room.

"It's okay. I'm alright… at least that's what I think…" Maia answered, although she had hurt her bum for the second time that day.

"Hello again," Rose's voice said from nowhere in a friendly tone. Everyone on this ship, or what it was, seemed to be very friendly persons, "I wondered were you three walked of to. But, okay, follow me please!"

Maia followed Rose, and looked at the back of her head while walking. She could sense that Rose had been through many difficult tasks, but that she was a very brave woman. Maia wanted to be brave. Because telling the truth she was kind of a coward. She was a coward who hid behind the peacemaker-word. But, she wasn't trying to be anyone else than herself, so maybe it was a good thing being a coward most of the time when you did try your hardest.

"OI! Are you two comin', or what?" Rose said with a louder voice since Liz and Jack hadn't come out from the overly large room yet. Maia could hear the noise of steps on floor and a couple of seconds later the two of them walked out, and the four of them made their way towards their goal.

The goal was the commando central of the ship which was a big room as well, although that didn't surprise Maia anymore. If she was right in her conjecture that the Doctor was a Time Lord, than it was the Time Lord way. Bigger on the inside. But entire ship (she decided that this must be a ship) was ridiculously big. It was like a black hole.

The room was loaded with electronics and as Maia walked through the room to the mysterious man called the Doctor she felt goosebumps. This was… scary in a nice way. She had been saved. Her saviours were all around her, and they were good and kind people. But, she couldn't help wondering, how had they found her in the first place?

Liz had rushed forward and clung to the Doctors arm. She smiled up (considering that Liz was much shorter than him) at him with him smiling back down at her. They looked happy, and Maia almost directly could sense the warm feeling that was between the two of them. They seemed to share a very close relationship, from what she could sense.

"How are you feeling now?" The Doctors voice took her out from her thoughts, and she stood silent for a while whilst thinking how she actually felt.

"… Considering everything… quite good, I think," she said slowly. She didn't actually know how she felt. It was so complicated. She was sad, of course… Her home and everyone she loved and know were dead, but oddly enough she also felt calm. It was like these people had done something to her, something that she couldn't explain.

"Fantastic!" the Doctor said smiling at her.

"I guess… But I wonder… can I ask you two questions, please?"

"Go right ahead", Jack answered for him, "Ask whatever you like, but just so you know; I'm available!"

Maia chose to ignore him for now. Jack obviously was somewhat of a goof, and right now she wanted more serious answers, not that she didn't think that the Captain could be serious; it just was that the Doctor seemed to have more authority, and he was surely was the leader of this group. So much had Maia gathered from the small talks she had have with the other crew members, and it always was smartest to turn to the leader-figure in a group to get the rightful information.

"Why was I saved? And where am I, exactly?"

The crew stood silent. What could they answer? They didn't know why the planet spirits had saved her. They hadn't give them any cause, just the plea of help to save her.

"We don't know," was everything the Doctor said, and Maia frowned. That wasn't the answer she wanted, but you couldn't get everything that you wanted in this world, either, could you? Maybe she would find out later. Maybe there were some clues somewhere placed for her. Clues that it was meant for her to find. She just had to wait and see. Maybe they were around the next corner of the road that lied before her.

"And for your location-question you're inside the TARDIS."

"TAR… DIS…? What is that?" she asked, but somehow she thought that she once had heard the name before. Maybe in one of those boring and dusty books she had been forced to read. It was a possibility. But all that information she had learned at GOT went in through one ear and out through the other. It didn't interest her.

"Yep. Stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space;" Liz said in that proud tone. She liked the machine very much, Maia could tell.

"So… It's a time machine… no?"

"Time **and** space!" Rose corrected her. Maia jumped; she almost had forgotten that Rose was there since the woman hadn't said anything for quite a long time.

'_Time and space… then he really are a Time Lord… Unbelievable!' _

And so, the Princess Maia Avari of Therin journeys with the Doctor and his companions started. Maia saw things she previously had believed to be fairytales and folk lore turned real, and she saved the earth.


End file.
